


Magpie and Tiger - Kerosene and Match

by InnerSpectrum



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: Four years  Jim Moriarty has worked with his bodyguard and killer extraordinaire Sebastian Moran. He thought he knew everything there was to know about the man. He was wrong.





	Magpie and Tiger - Kerosene and Match

I walk into the office at half past three in the morning and see Tiger asleep at the desk. I look down on the sleeping man, myriad ways to torture him dance through my mind, but I stop myself from acting out on them. It’s not his fault. Unlike me, the tall blond cannot go more than four full days without sleep and still be functional, unless under dire circumstances.

That had only happened once in the time we have worked together and even I was shocked by the man’s endurance when all hell broke out around us. He has proven himself for more capable than I ever imagined when I first hired him just for a few odd clean-up jobs. Then a few months in of working with him Belarus happened.

Those were dire circumstances I swore would never happen again and they haven’t. I smile darkly, _isn’t that what you call it Sebastian? – “smile darkly”_ , as I remember the damage we wrecked as those responsible paid dearly. The three-day rampage of just he and I sent a shockwave through the crime web quickly.

_Oh! The delicious body count left in our wake those three days, Sebs! I knew you were dangerous, it was why I had hired you part time. But that is where I leaned just how truly lethal you are. How you adore the hunt, the kill, the blood as much as I. Oh, they learned the deadly price of attempting to cross me at our hands. It was magnificent! We were glorious!!_

However, once things calmed down and we holed up, he crashed – hard. Armageddon itself could have happened right above his head and he would not have known. I fired a shot next to his head and he barely flinched in his sleep. I stayed awake and watched over him. When he awakened it five hours later, he took one look at me and ordered me to rest, to let him watch over me. It was the very first time he had done so in such a way I knew he meant it when he said if he had to knock me unconscious for me to get some rest he would do it. It was the first time I trusted him enough to comply. When I woke, there were two bodies in the corner. One with a snapped neck, the other with stabs wounds and a garroted throat.

“Why didn’t you just shoot them?” I had asked much later, when we were safe in London again.

“They had knives, not guns, I was fine. You’re usually a light sleeper, yet you barely moved. I didn’t want to wake you unnecessarily. You needed the rest, Sir.” He shrugged matter-of-fact. I hired him on as my personal body guard then and there. We never spoke of that time again for good reason, but that was then.

_This is now._

When I went to bed, at his orders nonetheless(!), he had said he just had a couple of things to finish with the report he was working on and then he was off to bed, himself. The fact he had fallen asleep at the desk was proof of his exhaustion. I had been more hard on him than usual these past couple of weeks. I am hard enough on him as it is, I concede. When I think it out I realize he had not been to sleep since we returned from Shanghai, four days ago. He had not said a word. Actually, he did, he told me to go to bed because I was getting cranky. He was right, it had been six days for me and were I not so cranky I would have realized how utterly exhausted he was when I asked to have that last report done by morning. He is above the mundane folks, yes, but he is not me.

_I really do need to be more kind to him._

I smirk knowing he’s going to have one hell of a crick in his neck when he awakens as I move his sleep heavy hand from the keyboard. He has fallen asleep pressing the e key. Hoping for fodder in which to chastise him as only I can, I lean over him. Experience tells me he is not waking any time soon. I do something I would not do were he awake, I lean fully against him enjoying the feel of his solid body under me. I run my fingers in his hair lightly before I catch myself.

_You’re his boss. It would ruin everything. Keep it friendly, but professional._

I remind myself why I’m there and press the backspace key. I hold it, inwardly giggling, as nearly two whole pages of the single character pass.

_Oh, you really are exhausted, Tiger._

Though I would not speak the words a loud, I mentally apologize to him as what looks like a list emerges. I release the key in surprise as I read.

It is not a list…

“There should be no sound, where you can hear me  
I hear how your voice screams out, in the silence of your love  
Its timbre pains me, its timbre thrills you  
When your yesterdays haunt you, in the restlessness of night  
Would you accept me as balm? I can be tomorrow’s peace.”

He had fallen asleep on the final e in the word _peace_.

I recoil in shock.

_Oh. My. God. It’s… It’s a bloody poem!_

I see the date and curse.

 _You fucking_ heard _me last week when I woke up crying from my nightmare! And you wrote about it today?_

_Bastard!_

I would have drawn my guns on him were they not already locked away. As it is, the Glock in Sebastian’s shoulder holster will do, but that wicked blade I know he always keeps on his person is looking very tempting right now.

_How could you, you fucking helminth!_

I look at the man, still deep in his slumber, clueless. I take a deep breath and then another. Curiosity gets the better of me and I scroll through a few pages realizing he has written a lot of them. Many of them dark and bloody which I adore. Some are a little angst-filled for my taste, but I still kind of liked them.

“To a smile darkly, who would kill me if he knew…” I read it aloud, the title catching my attention.

> _"You are the lit match_  
>  The hot ash of the cigarette  
>  About to fall
> 
> _I am the kerosene_  
>  Poured over this world  
>  Waiting, waiting, waiting
> 
> _For you_
> 
> _Fall to me my love_  
>  Let us spark  
>  And watch our dark souls
> 
> _EXPLODE_
> 
> _Let us burn_  
>  So hot, so bright, so sure  
>  Hell itself  
>  Will genuflect  
>  With envy.”

_How?_

_How could I have worked with you these past four years, Sebastian, and not know this about you?!_

_Because you do not want me to know? Why…?_

_My love… Oh..._

I’m amazed, amused and frankly appalled at the sharp stab of jealousy I realize I feel.

We don’t really talk about it, but I know he’s gay. Why would he think I would care if he were fucking some idiot bloke now? He goes out to play all the time.

_No, you don’t play anymore. In fact, you’ve been by my side constantly._

I remember the last time he told me he was going out to _play_. It was over nine months ago.

_Nine months! You have not gone out for sex in nearly nine months. My God, you monk!_

I wonder who is so special to Sebastian, that he would be so faithful when I note the nine month old date of the poem.

The truth of it hits me like a ton of bricks.

_“When your yesterdays haunt you, in the restlessness of night Would you accept me as balm? I can be tomorrow’s peace.”_

For the first time since I was a teenager I am truly surprised by someone.

And scared.

_“To a smile darkly, who would kill me if he knew…”_

I print out two of the poems, the press the e key and type two pages worth before I stop. I take my printouts and leave Sebastian as I found him.

* * *

I wake up to a major pain in my neck.

_God it hurts._

I check the time - oh four hundred hours. The last time I looked at the clock it was a quarter past three.

_What the fuck? I fell asleep at the keyboard? Shit!_

I immediately look around for Jim, but there is no sign of him having been around. Not that the sneaky bastard would leave any sign if he did not want to. He has scared the shit out of me, often enough, silently creeping up on me.

I stretch my neck wishing I could do that hypnotic serpentine thing Jim can do with his neck. I look at the computer and kind of laugh at my two pages of nothing but “…eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” feeling safe that it was not seen by the man. Jim for sure would have taken a video, then screamed me awake for his own amusement.

_You can be such a sadistic little dick at times and you love it._

_And so do I._

Yeah, I am exhausted to have fallen asleep while doing this, but the words came to me and I was afraid I’d lose them if I waited until later. I save the work, secure the file and pull up the report I was working on for Jim, checking everything is copasetic. The last thing I need is for Jim to take my head off when he comes in, goes through the report and finds even one thing off.

One of our guys asked me a couple of months back how I can put up with him, and I said _easily_. I can’t say that now. Jim has been chewing my head off for the least little thing these past couple of weeks. He’s been pushing me and pushing me and I don’t know why. I just deal with it, because...it's Jim.

Satisfied the report is good, I save it, shut down the machine and wait until all the systems go down in the office. There’s always this eerie quiet in the room after a power down. One becomes completely unaware of the white noise around them until even that is gone. Still there is sound, the natural noise of a home. A refrigerator. Heating and AC. I remember when I was in new the Army, we were out on a mission and thanks to the idiot major we had at the time, we got captured. Those fuckers loved their sensory deprivation. Locking me alone in a room, chained, gagged, blindfolded and my ears plugged. I learned there is no such thing as total silence, because I could hear my own body moving, hear my own dry swallows, my own wheezing. Worse I was left alone with my own thoughts. I shiver in the memory of rodents and insects and….

_Moran stop it! NOW!_

I shake myself wildly to dissipate both the memory and the feeling. I’ll have no one else to blame if I wake up crying like Jim.

_Shit, Jim. God that was so painful last week._

I was coming up from the kitchen when I heard him in his room thrashing about. I was about to knock on his door and check when I heard the tears. I had never heard him cry before. Let alone sobbing hard. I was pretty sure he would never have wanted me to see him like that. I felt like such shite quietly leaving him to his ghosts. I wanted nothing more than to take him in my arms and just hold him until it was better. He did not have to speak. We did not even have to acknowledge it ever happened come the light of day.

_It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve ignored something would it?_

I wanted to be there for him, but did not know how. At least in the morning when he was testier than usual I understood why and gave him a clear berth as much as I could until he was back to his normal shade of insane.

I don’t know when I fell in love with James Moriarty.

_Lord knows I don’t know how._

I have happily killed with him, killed for him without, and sometimes with, question. Yes, he is moody, temperamental. Yes, he scares the living shit out of me sometimes. There have been nights when I was not sure I would live to see morning because I knew he was in a dark mood and could lose it at any time and just pop me off. Yet his mind, his utter brilliancy. His creativity. His sick, twisted wicked humor. He was a man of small frame and height, but he wields so much power in a way that is natural, like he was born to it. You would never know how he clawed his way and took everything he wanted and he likes it that way.

Go ahead underestimate him. It will be your first and last mistake.

I was as shocked as Miller when Jim sliced up Ricky, a henchman of the small time bookie, over me. Ricky made the mistake of calling me Jim’s _overgrown blondie bitch_ within his earshot. I was amused personally, but Jim was not. He walked up to Ricky, cool as a cucumber. No one even saw the knife until Jim screamed on him. Jim was on his third cut by the time Ricky himself screamed. Jim was on his sixth by the time I thought to intervene.

“I’ll be sending the bill for the new Westwood to replace this one. Teach your people better manners.” was all Jim said as he wiped the blade clean on Miller’s suit sleeve. He pocketed the blade and then started whistling something from Bach as he walked out with a very smug me tow.

I sigh as I realize again how just bad I have it and how it will remain my secret.

_But fuck all to hell and back, I do love him._

I run a check with our security team before I head up. I pass Jim’s bedroom door. All’s quiet on the Western front. I don’t hear the telly, or any other sign through the door, that says he’s up, so I head for my room at last.

“Good morning Sebastian.”

“Sir?” I blink surprised. Jim is in my room, sitting on the edge of my bed when I flip the light on and walk in.

I inwardly groan. It’s going on five in the morning. I’m still exhausted and so not in the mood for any of his theatrics.

_I just want some fucking sleep, damn._

“Jim.” He corrects.

“Sir Jim?” I ask confused. He frowns slightly. I know I’ve fucked up somehow, but I’m just too tired to figure it out. Lucky for me Jim is in one of his better moods as he shakes his head and smiles slightly.

“Not sir. Not Jim sir, or Sir Jim. Just _Jim_.” he sing-songs as he taps the two sheets of paper on the bed beside him. “Come sit, Sebastian.”

“Si—Jim, I lov…”

 _I started to say “I love you but….” Shite I am wiped!_ If he caught the slip, he gave no indication.

“ _Jim_ I would love to get to the point of what you need from me, because I am exhausted.” I sigh, much too done to play mind games with him. I push the papers over and sit beside him.

“We need to talk.” Jim bit his lip, and turns his head, not looking at me.

_Whoa!_

_What the fuck?_

_Since when does James Moriarty not look me in the eyes?_

My exhaustion vanishes, immediately replaced with worry as my mind goes into over drive.

“What did I do wrong? Please, let me fix it, sir! Whatever it is, I will make it right. Please don't… do anything until you give me a chance…I…I...” I panic, inchoate words tripping all over each other as I try to figure out where I've fucked up so royally that he would want to get rid of me.

_Or worse._

I'm so panicking and lost in my own thoughts I almost didn't hear him.

“When you heard me cry last week. Did you want to come to me?”

I stare at him in shock. Where he avoided my eyes before, now he simply stares at me. It is a little, no _very_ , disconcerting when those dark eyes of his focus on me and barely blink.

Jim is not pretending that I don't know, so I don't pretend either.

“You have been in such a snit these past few weeks. I wasn't sure how I would have been received had I walked into your room while you were crying. But yes I wanted to just hold you. Very much so.” My words tumble out before I can think to stop them.

My mind is still reeling, trying to fathom how this connects with where I’ve messed up. Of course Jim has already leaped far beyond me and jumped to the crux of it.

“Can you stop loving me?” He asks calmly and my mind simply stops.

_Oh fuck he knows! But how?_

It does not matter, I know the answer.

_Please don't send me away for loving you, Jim._

I don't even think about it. I reach to my holster and retrieve the Glock. I make a point of dumping magazine, ensure only one bullet is in the chamber and hand the gun to Jim, safety off.

“That much?” He says softly as looks at the gun in his hand with an expression I've never seen before on his face. It is part awe, part shock and some unfathomable thing I can't define as I slide from the bed and kneel before him.

_If you send me away I would rather die. No one would ever be able to match you. I know this._

“Yes." I say simply. There really is nothing else to say. I can't stop loving him. He has spoiled me. How can I return to someone ordinary after being around someone like him? Trying to live without him would kill me painful and slow, I’d rather be done with it.

“Then where is the bullet for me, Sebastian?” he asks, his voice somehow even softer.

_A bullet? For you?_

I know the confusion is plain on my face. Jim looks at me with a tremulous smile.

“ _I am the lit match to your waiting kerosene_ , Sebastian. If you commit suicide before me, they will find two bodies in the morning for I _will_ follow you. What is the point of striking a match except to set something afire? Let the world burn because of us. Hell can fucking have it, once it’s off its knees!” His voice is barely above a whisper, but heat behind them was no less powerful for it as he snarls and my mind reels anew in light of what he has revealed.

Still, he is not done surprising me.

“I would have accepted your balm, Tiger. I would have. Yesterday’s ghosts are sometimes too much.”

_I just wrote that tonight!_

“Oh dear god, you were in the office!” I groan as it all makes sense.

Again, I don’t think. I leap up, grab the gun and pin him to the bed. I see something dark and very dangerous flash in those eyes. I am not in the least surprised when a moment later I feel the point of my own hunting knife already drawing blood as it scratched my neck and freeze. I see the restraint as he just barely tamps down the instinct that nearly got my throat cut.

_That was stupid Moran! Are you trying to commit suicide by magpie?_

I have already scattered the stray bullets from the bed. I slowly separate the magazine from the gun, eject the one bullet and toss them in different directions.

“That... was _unwise_ Tiger.” Jim’s eyes have only lost a smidgen of their wildness as he flipped the blade around and passes it to me by the grip. I slip it back into its sheath, then slip the entire sheath from my belt and fling it where I tossed the empty gun so I can find it later.

“Yeah, just told myself some measure of that. _Suicide by magpie_.”

Jim snickers as I roll off to the side and remove my now empty holster. As soon as it’s off I feel Jim’s arms around me pulling me up higher on the bed while laying us down. He cannot drag me into position so I take the hint and scoot up on the bed, not sure where this is going, but to wary to do anything but go with it.

“One moment, let’s avoid a repeat of what just happened, and possible accidents later.” Jim holds up a finger and walks to my dresser. He was in trousers and a polo shirt, yet two knives, a .22 and piano wire are placed on my dresser.

_Does he sleep with all that, every night?_

“No, I do not. But they are within easy reach and are the first things I grab when I dress.” Jim answers the unasked question on my face as he lays back on the bed again and stretches like a cat.

_Okay… This should be interesting._

I pick up everything from the floor that does not belong there, walk over to my armoire, used more as an armiger, and put them where they belong. Then I take off the remaining weaponry on me: two other guns, four other blades, a garrote and four shuriken.

Jim raises a brow at the shuriken and I feel an odd sense of pride that I can still surprise him sometimes.

“Outside of this place and one or two safe houses, do you know the only other time I felt completely safe?” Jim turns to lay on his left side and gently strokes the empty space in front of him. Having a pretty good idea of the answer, I half smile as I climb in front of him and turn on my left side as well. I know I am right when I feel Jim scoot closer to me as his arm snakes around under my t-shirt his palm flat on my abdomen. I feel his lips press gently to the back of my neck and I’m transported back to that time we never mentioned.

That final morning in that fleabag motel at the end of those three days of hell we now refer to as our first Cut and Gun Tour.

I had pushed the bed up against the far wall. Placed the pillows against the wall, Jim against the pillows and my back against a sleeping Jim as a full body shield. I was lying on the bed wide awake, gun in one hand, and a blade in the other, ready to kill anything else that came through the door or window uninvited until Jim woke. He had slid a hand under my shirt and it stayed. I thought nothing of it at first, thinking he was still half asleep and I was a warm body to snuggle. I did not encourage him, but more important, I didn’t stop him either. He pulled himself closer to me; his hand drawing circles that started on my chest, but then slowly drew them heading decidedly south. That is when I realized he was awake and he knew I was awake. Still, I knew we were not safe. I was about to stop him…

Then he kissed me on the nape of my neck.

No, that’s not correct, he drew the tip of his wet tongue along the nape of my neck.

Now, if I have a weak spot that was it. My breath hitched in reaction and I felt his lips smile against my neck just before he leaned up to say something to me. That was when he saw the dead bodies in the corner and the spell was broken. We immediately reverted to our criminal and killer modes and worked on getting our arses out of Dodge in one piece.

We've talked about other Cut & Gun tours we’ve done now and then, but never _that_ tour. Until now.

“I never felt as safe as I did waking up next to you, your body shielding mine.” He answers the question. It got really quiet in the room as the hand under my shirt started to move decidedly south.

We aren’t speaking anymore as I shuddered in pleasure as he repeated the nape lick. I can feel his grin at my nape before he pulls me down and straddles me, my hands naturally fall at his hips.

“Liked that did you?”

I am not in the least bit surprised when a blade appears in his hands as he pulls at the hem of my t-shirt.

“Yes, but I’ve a feeling it’s about to get even better.”

I grin broadly as I put my hands under my head offering my shirt to him. We both know it’s more than just a mere shirt that’s being offered and accepted as we finally get to finish what was barely started four years ago. I feel the first cut exposing my belly just as he brings his lips down to mine.

Much later my mobile wakes a deliciously sore me. I frown at the new ring tone and then grin.

_You psycho fuck, you changed the ringtone for you to "The Thieving Magpie"?!_

“This better be good as good as you.” I answer groggily looking at the clock, 1300 hours on the dot.

“Get up, Tiger. I want to hand deliver a message regarding prompt shipments from Ahmedabad. Becky’s coming. Wheels out in 45. Your cock in my mouth in ten or you’re celibate for a week. Try me.” Jim snarled without preamble, then rang out.

_WHAT?!_

Fully wake, I am laughing uproariously as I tear out of bed. Becky was my newest rifle. A sweet thing on the range, he knew that I’ve been itching to use in the real world. We are going on another Cut and Gun tour, our favorite kind of work.

_Yes!!_

I was showered, half-dressed and downstairs in the office with the back of my damp head pressed hard against the locked door, trying my damnedest to not scream Jim’s name within in nine minutes.

When I made it back up to my room to finish dressing I noticed the two papers Jim had from last night on my nightstand. I looked at them at last and grinned at the two poems printed.

Jim had drawn a tiger on one sheet, its paw crossing over to hold a bird I knew to be a magpie on the other sheet. He drew them in such a way that you needed both sheets to see the complete rendering. And I’ll be damned if the sheet with the magpie didn’t have a cigarette hole burned in it by a wing, as the sheet with the tiger had a spot that smelled suspiciously like kerosene by a paw.


End file.
